September 27, 2014

Far-Right Indoctrinates Small Children through Terror, Falsehoods

Desperate because conservatives are losing their constituency of older white people, far-right leaders are working to proselytize the young. Fox network is losing its watchers, and conservative radio shows are losing their sponsors. The answer to the conservative movement is children. The best way to take them into the fold is false and misleading education. For a long time, schools have tried to obtain textbooks that give the conservative revisionist history and science. Ten scholars in politics and history have found that Texas textbooks are full of lies and distortions to trick students into believing the radical right myths about racism, government, and the false perception that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.”

For example, segregation wasn’t so bad, according to the textbooks, because white and black schools had “similar buildings, buses, and teachers.” Although taxes have gone up since 1927, society “does not appear to be much more civilized today than it was” back then. The book provides no information about the much reduced poverty and diseases, improved education, and better infrastructure such as the federal highway system.

Not satisfied with indoctrinating children in schools, the far right hocks coloring books for the littlest ones. Open carry is good, gays are bad—these are just a few ideas in the coloring books.

The newest offering shows bin Laden’s last moments, a man being killed by ISIL, and Taliban members. Open this new coloring book and you’ll find bin Laden’s last few moments, Taliban members and a man being killed by ISIS. Big Coloring Books has re-released the updated We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom and The True Faces of Evil Global Terrorism (with trading cards). The one letting kiddies color in an image of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with the words “stone him” now includes a man being crucified as an introduction to ISIL. The page reads, “This is what ISIS wants to bring to America and its people. What are you going to do when they come for you?” (The last line comes from “Bad Boys,” written by the reggae group “Inner Circle.”)

The video accompanying the announcement of the book admits that it is “savage, barbaric, and animalistic.” Visuals of what children can color are available here.

The books’ publisher, Wayne Bell, touted his goods on Fox & Friends. Brian Kilmeade faithfully explained that the coloring books are “meant to teach kids about terror threats facing our nation” and explained that they are “teaching tools.” In claiming that the books are “accurate and fair,” he skipped over the concern that the books reinforce negative stereotypes because almost all mention of Muslims come with the terms “extremists” and “terrorists.” In the Bowe Bergdhal prisoner exchange, the book states that Obama “broke the law.”

Bell defended the gory nature of the books by claiming that TV-watching children see Christian kids being “cut in half” in Iraq. The Internet has published reports of one 5-year-old child so killed, but no video. Kilmeade said that the images in the books could “cause nightmares” but children “will be educated at the same time.” According to Kilmeade, there would be no need for these books if teachers did their jobs.

These coloring books aren’t the only false, scary propaganda aimed at small children. Like this one by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Note the “Tea Plant” on the cover. According to its description, the Ted Cruz to the Future™ – Comic Coloring Activity Book is a “non-partisan, fact-driven view of how Texas Sen. Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz became a U.S. senator and details, through his quotes and public information his ideas for what he believes will help America grow.” Among “non-partisan, fact-driven” information children will learn from the new book:

Ted Cruz Is A Man Of Great Virility And Stamina. (The word “virility” should bring up interesting discussions with little children.)

Ted Cruz Can See The Future. (because he spoke with “clairvoyant precision” about the “quickly approaching Obama Care disaster.”)

Cruz Is the Constitution’s Guardian.

America Is a Christian Nation. (from all those “official references to … Divine guidance.”)

Providing Health Care To People Who Can’t Afford It Is Worse Than War.

These radical right-wing coloring books for kids as young as two years old aren’t new. Before the 2010 election, the 32-page The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids came on the scene from Really Big Coloring Books Inc. Christopher Knight described it in the LA Times as “cheerful in tone, semi-literate in its writing, and factually challenged…. Puzzles, lyrics to patriotic songs and line drawings of the Statue of Liberty, edifices in Washington and the facade of the New York Stock Exchange are interspersed with free-market-obsessed texts.” Messages include “No more taxes!” and private medicine “not restricted by federal or state governments.” Mr. Rushmore presidents look worried while citizens have huge smiles on vacant faces. Federal debt has “become a life style because as [sic] this will bankrupt our country.” Run-on sentences are rife, which would have caused my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Adams, apoplexy.

The false myth of the Tea Party of 1773 is carefully placed on the front cover. No mention that the tea was thrown into the Boston Harbor because government gave big business a deal that caused small Colonial businesses to go under because they couldn’t compete. The Boston Tea Party was an uprising against big corporate tax cuts enacted by the British Parliament, many of whose members were, like King George III, major company stockholders. (If that sounds familiar to present day, members of Congress might start worrying about a revolution.)

A sequel to this has popped up, Tea Party II: Why America Loves You, replete with the cult’s heroes such as Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rand Paul, and Sarah Palin. It came out before Palin’s big brawl in Anchorage that called out the police and caused her to deny she was there before she admitted she was there. House Minority Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are represented, but the text explains that they are bullies because they “openly make fun of the Tea Party.”

Politifact, which tends to lean conservative , has ruled that 60 percent of the claims by Fox network pundits and on-air personalities are Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. Add the above statements from Wayne Bell and Brian Kilmeade to that 60 percent. And avoid the false fears of the far-right coloring books unless you want to provoke nightmares.